Overview
The National Democracy is a francophone Belgian far-right political party. The party advocated a strong unitary Belgian nationalism, strongly opposed immigration, and reached out to Flemish voters.
The party's acting leader is Marco Santi.
In the 2003 federal election, it won one seat in the Chamber of Representatives, with 2% of the vote. It also had two seats in the Senate. A 2006 poll showed that it had the backing of about 9.4% of the Walloon voters. Despite this poll it won in the 10 June 2007 federal elections, 1 out of 150 seats in the Chamber of Representatives and 1 out of 40 seats in the Senate.
Development
The DN was established by Daniel Féret, a former member of Jeune Europe who subsequently was active with the populist . The party clashed with the Party of New Forces (PFN) from its foundation as Féret sought to distance his group from the far-right but despite his efforts a number of extremist activists soon joined the DN. The party's ideology soon became one of ultra-nationalism, xenophobia, racism and anti-Flemish sentiment, combined with a strong support for neo-liberal economics. They also look to their French namesake and followed many of their ideas, although the interest was not reciprocated as Jean-Marie Le Pen generally looked elsewhere in Belgium for allies, that is also the reason why the changed their name into National Democratie. In 1989 a number of PFN members switched to the FN due to internal difficulties in their party and as a result the FN again shifted policy, abandoning its earlier pro-NATO stance in favour opposition to both the USA and the Soviet Union.
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